Vanguard · 2024-2025
Saved $2.8M+ a year by moving 8,000+ screens onto one design system
I helped lead the design side of moving 8,000+ screens across 3 enterprise products onto Vanguard's Constellation design system. That unlocked $2.8M+ in annual efficiency and made dev delivery 3x faster.
- Role
- Product Design, Design Systems
- Years
- 2024 - 2026
- Read
- 5 min read
- Saved in Efficency
- $2.8M+
- Saved in Efficency
- Faster Delivery
- 3.0X
- Faster Delivery
- Projects Shipped
- 4+
- Projects Shipped
- Screens
- 8,000+
- Screens
Challange
Vanguard launched a new design system (Constellation), but none of our institutional or B2C platforms were compliant. This led to design and dev teams working from scratch, wasting time and over $2M annually in delivery inefficiencies.
My Role
As the IC design lead, I helped drive the initiative to migrate 8,000+ screens across 3 high-impact products to Constellation. I worked closely with our design system team and dev partners to:Designed end-to-end UX flows for the client portal
- Drove the audit and migration plan
- Owned systemized updates across the Figma files
- Set the bar for accessibility, consistency, and handoff quality
- Coordinated the phased rollout with leads so feature work kept shipping
Research
Before touching screens, I audited the legacy Figma files to see what we actually had.
- Component audit: mapped legacy patterns to their Constellation equivalents and flagged the gaps the system didn't cover yet
- Reuse analysis: found the patterns that repeated across products, where one fix would scale to hundreds of screens
- Phasing constraints: worked with product leads to find which flows could migrate without blocking active feature work
Solution
From one-off redesigns to a systemized pipeline.
I didn't reskin screen by screen. I migrated by pattern: fix it once in the system mapping, then apply it everywhere it shows up.
From big-bang to phased rollout.
Screens rolled out in phases alongside the roadmap, so the migration never became the reason a feature slipped.
From "design system as a library" to "design system as a working model."
The cross-functional process we piloted on PACELift, with design system team, product design, and dev working as one unit, stuck and is still used across the org.
Outcome
Design systems are only effective when supported by strong advocacy and clear ROI. Even highly manual work (like re-skinning thousands of screens) can be high-impact if it's strategic. Speed and quality scale with the right systems, team dynamics, and Figma process.
Impact
- Saved in Efficency
- $2.8M+
- Saved in Efficency
- Faster Delivery
- 3.0X
- Faster Delivery
- Projects Shipped
- 4+
- Projects Shipped
- Screens
- 8,000+
- Screens
Team
- Michal Lenik - Design Manager
- Jennifer Long - Product Designer
- Rich Cossentino - Product Designer
- George Meiers - Product Designer
- Michael Bugler - Product Designer